KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Launch Pad 39A, preparations are under way to close space shuttle Discovery's payload bay doors around the U.S. Node 2 module, named Harmony. The name was chosen from an academic competition involving more than 2,200 U. S. students in kindergarten through high school. The module will be delivered to the International Space Station aboard Discovery on the 14-day STS-120 mission. An orbiter's payload bay door closure at the pad is a milestone signaling that the launch date is near. Discovery's launch is targeted for Oct. 23 at 11:38 a.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton KSC-07pd2820

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VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- At Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, technicians inside Orbital Sciences' processing facility guide the lifting device as NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft is placed into a tilt-rotation fixture. The spacecraft will be rotated to horizontal for joining with the Pegasus XL rocket. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus will launch NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array NuSTAR into space. After the rocket and spacecraft are processed at Vandenberg, they will be flown on Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site at the Pacific Ocean’s Kwajalein Atoll for launch. The high-energy x-ray telescope will conduct a census for black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars. For more information, visit science.nasa.gov/missions/nustar/. Photo credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB KSC-2012-1382

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- On Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the integrated truss structure S6 and solar arrays, the STS-119 mission payload, slowly move out of the payload canister into the Payload Changeout Room, or PCR. They will be installed in space shuttle Discovery's payload bay after the shuttle rolls out to the launch pad. Launch of Discovery on the STS-119 mission is scheduled for Feb. 12. During Discovery's 14-day mission, the crew will install the S6 truss segment and its solar arrays to the starboard side of the station, completing the station's backbone, or truss. Photo credit: NASA/Chris Rhodes KSC-2009-1110

Technicians in the Space Station Processing Facility at KSC prepare to lower an Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA) onto a work stand. The IEA, a large truss segment of the International Space Station (ISS), is one of four power modules to be used on the International Space Station. The modules contain batteries for the ISS solar panels and power for the life support systems and experiments that will be conducted. This first IEA will fly on the Space Shuttle Endeavour as part of STS-97, scheduled to launch August 5, 1999 KSC-98pc920

BOEING DELTA 4 SHROUD SEPARATION TEST IN SPACE POWER FACILITY AT NASA PLUM BROOK STATION

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - At Port Canaveral, the Pressurized Module of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) is lifted out of the ship’s cargo hold. It will be loaded onto the truck bed in the background for transfer to KSC’s Space Station Processing Facility. The container transport ship carrying JEM departed May 2 from Yokohama Harbor in Japan for the voyage to the United States. The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) developed the laboratory at the Tsukuba Space Center near Tokyo. The Pressurized Module is the first element of the JEM, named "Kibo" (Hope), to be delivered to KSC. The JEM is Japan's primary contribution to the Station. It will enhance the unique research capabilities of the orbiting complex by providing an additional environment for astronauts to conduct science experiments. The JEM also includes an exposed facility (platform) for space environment experiments, a robotic manipulator system, and two logistics modules. The various JEM components will be assembled in space over the course of three Shuttle missions.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In high bay 4 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, workers position the Ares I-X crew module mock-up onto a mock-up of the service module during a fit check of the hardware. When fully developed, the 16-foot diameter crew module will furnish living space and reentry protection for future astronauts, and the service module’s main engine will be used to break out of lunar orbit for the return trip to Earth. Ares I-X is the test flight for the Ares I, which is part of the Constellation Program to return men to the moon and beyond. The I-X flight will provide NASA an early opportunity to test and prove hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with Ares I launches. Targeted for the summer of 2009, the launch of the full-scale Ares I-X will be the first in a series of unpiloted rocket launches from Kennedy. Photo credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller KSC-2009-1664

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Launch Pad 39A, preparations are under way to close space shuttle Discovery's payload bay doors around the U.S. Node 2 module, named Harmony. The name was chosen from an academic competition involving more than 2,200 U. S. students in kindergarten through high school. The module will be delivered to the International Space Station aboard Discovery on the 14-day STS-120 mission. An orbiter's payload bay door closure at the pad is a milestone signaling that the launch date is near. Discovery's launch is targeted for Oct. 23 at 11:38 a.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton KSC-07pd2820

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Launch Pad 39A, preparations are under way to close space shuttle Discovery's payload bay doors around the U.S. Node 2 module, named Harmony. The name was chosen from an academic competition involving more than 2,200 U. S. students in kindergarten through high school. The module will be delivered to the International Space Station aboard Discovery on the 14-day STS-120 mission. An orbiter's payload bay door closure at the pad is a milestone signaling that the launch date is near. Discovery's launch is targeted for Oct. 23 at 11:38 a.m. EDT. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton

Space Shuttle Program

The Space Shuttle program was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, administered by NASA and officially beginning in 1972. The Space Shuttle system—composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank— carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and lands as a glider. Although the concept had been explored since the late 1960s, the program formally commenced in 1972 and was the focus of NASA's manned operations after the final Apollo and Skylab flights in the mid-1970s. It started with the launch of the first shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. and finished with its last mission, STS-135 flown by Atlantis, in July 2011.